Financial agreement

[1stwife]

Hi. This is long so please bear with me. I am separated and my ex and I reached agreement on finances in May based on the agreed selling price of the family home. We were supposed to complete on the house sale at end of March as no chain is involved and our buyers were paying cash and I am buying a house with cash from the equity so no mortgages involved either. So far so good.

However, there has been one stubborn legal issue that is becoming Groundhog Day. It is about a tiny (1m I think) strip within our parking area that is supposed to belong to someone else. They ‘owners’ have said they do not own it, but our buyers want the people who do not own it to have a legal agreement drawn up to say they don’t. The ‘owners’ are two sisters in their late 70s/ early 80s who do not want the hassle of this and are not engaging with their solicitor or ours. It has been at least 4 months of this and still no going forward.

This week I have found out that my husband has been quietly paying our buyers’ rent as apparently they had told him they would reduce their offer due to longer than expected rental time as we hadn’t completed in March. And he suggested this instead. For me, this means, why are they in any rush to settle the legal wrangle? They feel pretty much guaranteed to buy our house (no other offers) and my ex is paying their rent!

I feel completely stuck in this house, possibly losing out on a lovely new home I can start again in with my kids. So some issues for me:

1. How did he know this about buyers possibly reducing offer and I didn't?
2. If they reduce the price we would have to renegotiate our financial settlement and is this possible as we have both signed off? Also, a friend has said that as ex has never disclosed his true income/assets it is possible. Is that right?

3.My ex is a ‘covert narcissist’ (not an official diagnosis) and I am a codependent which I have only recently learned after 2.5 years of therapy and I still can’t quite believe that he is an ‘abuser’. As I blame myself for all our marital woes. When I got a (little) bit cross about him paying their rent without discussing it with me, he said he was trying to help me as I am going to get the equity from the house and I am never grateful or happy with anything he does to help me. But a friend has pointed out that it benefits him to keep house price unchanged as he does not want to re open our financial settlement.

So, any ideas about how I can move this forward to get the house sale completed and limit communication with a man who loves to stonewall me and will only communicate if it suits him?

And thank you if you made it this far.

Any thoughts?

The most obvious issue for you is that you don’t seem to know what you want. Do you want to get the house sold or do you want to reopen the settlement?

Is the later even viable if you have a court order? Why didn’t your agreement take account of this, house sale prices are notoriously volatile. If you aren’t happy with the settlement then see a solicitor and find out were you stand.

I think it unreasonable to say you are not aware of this issue. The delay and reason for it are known to you. It’s clearly a barrier to the agreed sale and would lead to a lower price or the sale falling through. It’s not up to your ex to spell this risk out to you, what it means for you or what you can individually do about it.

He spent his money keeping them interested and even if his motives are not pure, he isn’t breaking the agreement. You lose nothing in terms of the agreement you made.

If fundamentally you are unhappy with the agreement then seek legal advice as to whether it can be reopened and if this is worthwhile. That’s your prerogative just like it was his to make sure the terms of the agreement are met and it is enacted.